Liquid Courage
by DarkAuress
Summary: Sherlock Holmes is scared of one thing, and one thing only.


John Watson, certified doctor and war veteran, flatmate of the infamous Sherlock Holmes, is scared of very few things in the waking world. He scoffs at horror movies, haunted houses, the like. Real fear is living on a battlefield, not knowing whether or not you'll survive the morrow. Real fear finds him in his dreams.

Sherlock Holmes is scared of one thing, and one thing only. You might think it's the death or injury of his family – you would be wrong. Mycroft can take care of himself, as well as their parents and sister. No, it's not that. His single greatest fear has very much to do with his shorter counterpart, which is ridiculous because said small doctor is a war veteran who can take care of himself, thank you very much. But that does nothing to keep Sherlock from worrying, not that he has ever or would ever mention such a pointless emotion.

When John has nightmares, he shouts in his sleep. Sherlock knows this because he spends most nights composing, and almost every night John wakes with a gut-wrenching shriek.

Sherlock listens as soft footsteps pad their way to the kitchen, and, like every night John suffers his sleep-monsters, the clinking of a whiskey bottle against a glass. If Sherlock had a soul (and he still persists in the idea that he doesn't), he knows it would hurt as John does. However, his lack of a soul does nothing for his bleeding heart.

It's one of those nights: the kind during which John wrenches himself from the midnight battlefield that persists in haunting his sleep with a scream, pajama shirt plastered to his back and chest with cold sweat. With shaking legs, John forces himself to rise out of bed and trudge down the hall to the kitchen, where his liquid courage lies. His hands tremble as he pulls the whiskey and customary glass from the back of the cabinet. He knows, deep down, that this isn't the way he should be dealing with this. The therapist told him, before he'd fired her, that crawling back into the bottle was the worst thing for PTSD. Logically, he knew she was right. But thinking logically was far from his mind when his monsters found him in the dark. When that happened, the bottle was much more comforting than the words of his ex-therapist.

He's in the midst of trying to forget, concentrating on the cool liquid burning down his throat, when he notices the tall, dark figure looming on the threshold of the kitchen.

John is a doctor, but the war left him with instincts he wouldn't forget for the rest of his life. In the space of a second, the glass hanging loosely in his hand is a weapon and he moves into a position that gives him maximum accuracy if he were to throw it.

"Who are you?" he says, but it comes out more like a squeak. So much for hoping that Sherlock might hear and come rushing to the rescue.

The figure approaches him in a blur too fast for John to react. He braces himself for the impact of a knife or the pop of a bullet.

The figure embraces him in a hug.

"I swear, John," the figure says in a rich, familiar baritone that sends John reeling because this is _Sherlock hugging him_ -

"I swear," he continues, and John unconsciously leans into the embrace. "If I find that you're drinking in the middle of the night again I _will_ confiscate your whiskey supply."

John sighs. "I don't know what to do, otherwise. How am I supposed to forget?"

In a sweeping motion characteristic of his dramatic phenotype, Sherlock gently tips John's face to meet his eyes. John can feel Sherlock's breath on his lips, can see the gleam of adrenaline in his dark eyes. Their noses brush as Sherlock claims his lips.

It's chaste, but sweeter than anything John's ever experienced. When they part, Sherlock's mouth curves into a slight smile, and that's all that John can think about because if he actually acknowledges what just happened his head might explode.

"Is this a proper way to distract you?"

John laughs a bit, because he never _dreamed_ that this could happen. But no, that's not right. This has been building since they met, that first day in the lab, and Sherlock amused him because he was so obviously emotional and pretended to be the polar opposite. It's been building through every case, a tension that John wanted to think of as pure friendship because he couldn't think of it as anything else. Every friendly touch, every reassurance, every "are you okay?" has led up to this moment.

"I think you might be a sufficient distraction, yes."

And Sherlock growls and pushes him against the nearest wall and John is very sure that this is the _perfect_ thing to distract him from his monsters.


End file.
